The Shadowrun Complete City Kit and New York City Guide: A Vornheim Hack

I had quite a bit of (albeit time consuming) fun doing this. I hope that others enjoy it and find use out of it!

I’m copying the introduction from the kit because it pretty much says all I need to…

Edit: I should add that while I took some things from the Shadowrun books that happened to NYC, like the great Earthquake of 2005 and Manhattan, Inc. I rewrote them in a way that I found more exciting. All the info on the neighborhoods and boroughs is from me and not taken from any other source (except I believe that one of the books mentions one of the airports also being used as a military base).

Basically I decided to run a Shadowrun game for my players and thought it would be fun and cool to set the game in New York City (as I live just over the bridge from it). To get myself pumped (and hopefully not have to do that much heavily lifting) I read through the Neo-Anarchist’s Guide to North America by FASA and The Rotten Apple: Manhattan by Catalyst Game Labs and was floored by how boring these books are and how they provide nothing useful at the gaming table, which is essential to me.

Largely I’ve found that most RPG setting books follow the same philosophy as the two books mentioned above and that is boring to me. I don’t want large blocks of text that describe people that I and my players don’t care about or will interact with. I want useful stuff.

To put it simply: Vornheim by Zak S. has spoiled me. I view it as the way that setting books should be done.

I took my Firefly: Hurtlin’ Through the ‘Verse hack I did of Vornheim and cannibalized it for my Shadowrun Complete City Kit and New York City Guide. While there are a few things that have been re-edited/changed, there is also quite a bit of new ideas and stuff for this book. As always the goal was to create this for myself as an easy to use tool for my gaming group, but with the goal of releasing it to the RPG community for their enjoyment. While is a NYC guide and has maps and mentions several of the neighborhoods, it can be used for any Shadowrun sprawl.

I kept this book system-agnostic because I do not any of the Shadowrun rule systems. I use Savage Worlds™. I didn’t want to force that decision on others, so kept it easy to use to generate ideas for any persons system of preference.

This can also be used with any other cyberpunk book. Just get rid of the magic and metahumans and you’re good to go.

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About wrathofzombie

I am a History major attending a community college until I can get more financial aid and attend a four year school. I am living in NJ with my girlfriend who is currently wrapping up on obtaining her PhD in Toxicology. I love Star Wars, Role-playing, video games, working out, reading, writing, and hanging with my girlfriend, dog (Perfect), and two kittens (Birch and Brambles).
My main focus on this site will be my discussion of Role-playing games and ideas and hopefully contribute something worth a damn.
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[…] moment, I zoom in on setting and chew on it a bit. This is on my mind since someone did a wonderful New York City Setting Book based on Vornheim. If you’re unfamiliar, Vornheim is one of the more interesting setting […]

@Billy- Grab a handful of d6s (the amount you decide will determine the concentration of businesses in the area). Drop the dice on to the paper. The boxes the dice land in are the businesses in that section of town.

If it lands on a line you can either choose one or all. This is for quick generation for when the players are wanting to go shopping, looking for a particular place, or you just want to fill the scenery.

[…] take those out of the book and adapt them to your own needs. Mike Evans did a great job with his Shadowrun and Firefly Hacks of Vornheim. Check them out to see what this is all about. There is talk of […]